February 18, 2012

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

As I’m sure many readers know, dioceses of the Church of England—there are 44 of them—are voting on the Anglican Covenant. Only if a majority of the dioceses vote in favor of the pact will the question of its adoption by the Church of England return to the General Synod for final approval. If a majority of dioceses vote against the Covenant, one would expect that the Covenant will have effectively been rejected by the Mother Church of worldwide Anglicanism. One always has to worry, however, whether Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams might devise some ad hoc contrivance to rescue his beloved Covenant from ignominious rejection by his own church.

Going into this weekend, the diocesan vote was 5 dioceses for Covenant adoption (Lichfield, Durham, Europe, Bristol, and Canterbury) and 6 dioceses against (Truro, Birmingham, Wakefield, St. Edmundsbury & Ipswich, Derby, and Gloucester). The vote is no longer so close.

This weekend, the dioceses of Leicester, Portsmouth, Rochester, and Salisbury and all voted against the Covenant. This makes the current vote of dioceses 5 for the Covenant and 10 against!

More information , including actual vote totals, will eventually appear on the No Anglican Covenant Coalition’s blog and Web site.

Actually, it doesn't take a majority of dioceses to put this miserable Covenant out of our colective misery. If simply half of the dioceses say no, then the Covenanters cannot attain a majority. So they need 23 to win. We only need 22 to block. They need 18 more. We only need another 12.